


Sing Me To Safe Harbour

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Excessive Shirtlessness, Howard Stark - Freeform, M/M, Sailor!Clint, Sirens, lucky - Freeform, siren!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 19:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21202622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Clint was on his way home when he heard someone singing on the cliffs. Someone singing about coffee, so of course he had to go investigate. What if there was a coffee shop there he didn't know about?Written for my Winterhawk Bingo square of 'Howard Stark'.





	Sing Me To Safe Harbour

The boat's engine was noisy and the slosh-thump of the waves as Clint powered through them was noisier, so it took him a few minutes to realise he could hear singing.

He slowed the engine so that he could hear better, looking at the empty sea around him and the deserted coastline he was following. Where the hell was that coming from?

The singing rose, reaching out across the waves to Clint. It was low and enticing and-

Shit.

It was about coffee.

God, he'd kill for some coffee right now. He glanced ahead, at the long distance before he made it home. It was going to be hours before he came anywhere close to getting a cup.

"...hot and dark, rich and bitter…" sang the voice, and Clint could almost taste it, sliding over his taste buds.

Fuck it. He turned his boat in the direction of the voice, which was coming from behind a cluster of rocks. If there was a coffee shop back there, no way was he going to miss out. 

The voice grew louder as Clint headed closer, singing about the rush of fresh caffeine and the way the smell floated through the air. Clint found himself speeding up, and then speeding up again, desperate to get a hot mug cradled in his hands.

He came around the outcrop of rocks way too fast and should have wrecked himself on the stone shelf the other side, but the singing cut out just in time for his head to clear so that he realised the danger. He threw the engine straight into reverse, making the gears grind and whine, slowing his forward momentum. 

Not enough. The waves were sweeping him forward, right into the rocks. Clint grabbed for the side of the boat and braced himself for a crash.

It didn't come. A dark figure darted out and caught the bow of Clint's boat, holding it off the rocks with impressive strength even as another wave hit, forcing the boat forward again.

Another man appeared, waving at Clint. "Throw a rope!" he bellowed over the sound of the waves crashing into the rocks.

This whole area was nothing but jagged rocks and sheer cliff faces. What the hell had Clint been thinking? He was going to drown here.

"A rope!!" shouted the second man again, and Clint scrambled for the mooring line, securing it to a cleat before throwing it to the guy. Another wave hit and he stumbled forward with the force of it, falling to his knees on the hard deck.

The guy holding the boat steady against the full force of the sea didn't even waver. His bare feet were firmly planted on the slippery rocks, and his arm muscles were bulging as they held the boat but gave no sign of giving beneath the strain of it. Clint realised that he was half-naked, sea spray covering his skin and making it shine, and his hair was long enough to be blowing out in the wind.

Jesus Christ, if Clint hadn't been in the immediate danger of a horrific death, he'd have definitely stopped to flirt with him. As it was, he took in a very appreciative look before the next wave smashed into the boat and he had to grab for the side to steady himself.

The guy holding the rope yelled something Clint couldn't hear at the hot guy, then started pulling the rope, heading across the slippery rocks. The hot guy changed his grip and started pulling the boat around in the same direction. Clint looked around and realised they were heading for the mouth of a cave.

Maybe that's where the coffee shop was.

There was no way that any normal guy should have been able to drag the boat around, against the power of the sea, but the hot guy made it look easy. The other guy was pretty much only using the rope to steady the boat and keep the stern from swinging out. They got it all the way around the spike of rock that stuck out, protecting the cave entrance, to where the water was much calmer, and then inside the cave to where there was a shallow beach of pebbles. They beached the boat on it, the hot guy dragging it up out of the water while Clint just stared at the flexing of his muscles and tried not to have a lust meltdown. 

One of his arms wasn't just shining because of the seawater, it was made out of metal plates. What the hell?

"You okay?" The guy asked in a gruff tone, once the boat was up out of the water and Clint was able to scramble out onto dry land.

"Yeah," he said, feeling dazed. He glanced around the cave to see nothing more than a wrecked speedboat that looked like it had been far more expensive than Clint's glorified dinghy when it had been in one piece, and a pile of dismantled electronics. "Where's the coffee?"

The other guy, the one Clint had barely spared a glance because he was fully-clothed and not so hot Clint was having trouble thinking about anything else, spoke up. "Yeah, that's not happening."

Clint let his shoulders slump. "Aw, coffee, no. Why was someone singing about it, then?"

"He's a siren, that's what he does," said the not-so-hot guy as he climbed into Clint's boat and started poking around. "Hey, I'm just going to check over your engine, okay?" He didn't wait for a response before opening the engine cover up.

"A siren," repeated Clint, eyeing the hot guy again. Apart from the arm, and the lack of clothing, he looked just like a regular guy.

A regular, smoking hot guy, obviously. Holy shit, those abs were insane. Maybe he was a mythical being after all.

Plus there was the whole singing thing, which now Clint was thinking about it seemed like a really weird way to advertise a coffee shop. 

The hot guy let out a sigh. "Howard," he said tiredly, as if in reprimand, but the other guy was already distracted, covered in oil and humming to himself as he did something to Clint's engine.

"Aren't sirens meant to kill people?" asked Clint. "Let them die on the rocks rather than use their impressive upper body strength to save them?"

The siren, and yeah, Clint was just going with it now, shrugged. "I'm not that great as a siren," he said. "It's kinda why the others cast me out, and took my arm. But I get lonely, so…" he trailed off and shrugged again. 

"So you kidnap people?" asked Clint, incredulously. "You're kidding, right? I've got stuff to do, I can’t be kidnapped!" 

"It's not kidnapping, I just sing," said the siren.

"It's totally kidnapping," said Howard, lifting his head from the engine. "You don't even give us the stuff you sing about." He looked at Clint. "He promised me piles of crazy modern tech, and then I get here, smash up my boat, and find nothing but rocks and water. And that second-hand claptrap," he added, waving at the pile of electronics with obvious disdain.

Now that Clint had taken his eyes off the siren's gleaming muscles long enough to actually look at him, Howard looked kind of familiar. He squinted, trying to place him, then blinked in surprise. 

"Howard Stark?" 

Howard grinned and threw him a salute. "The very same."

Clint stared a bit harder, because it must have been at least twenty years since Howard Stark had disappeared on a boat trip and been widely presumed dead, but this guy didn't look to have aged at all from the pictures Clint had seen. "I know your son," he said. God, Tony was going to _freak_.

"Oh yeah?" asked Howard. "How's he doing? Graduated MIT yet, or is he still letting himself get distracted by party girls? Not that I can really blame him for that one, I guess."

"Uh," said Clint, and glanced at the siren, who had crossed his arms over his chest and wow, those biceps. "Tony graduated twenty years ago. I think he's got, like, 8 doctorates now. "

Howard stopped tinkering with the engine and stood up. "Twenty years?" he asked, and looked at the siren. "What the fuck, Bucky?"

The siren shrugged. "I told you time moved differently here."

"Twenty years!" Howard said again. "Christ! I need to get back, the company-"

"It's doing fine," said Clint. "Tony's built it right up since he shut down the weapons division.”

Howard stared at him in horror. “Since he did what?!” He looked back at the engine, then stood up, slamming the hatch shut. “Bucky, that’s it, I have to go, right now.”

“You need to wait for the wind to change, or I can’t sing you away from the rocks,” said the siren - Bucky, apparently, which wasn’t the kind of name Clint would have figured for a siren, but whatever.

“Oh, hey, so we’re not trapped here,” said Clint, because he’d been having a bad feeling about spending the next twenty years in a cave. Even with the eye candy available, that would still have sucked.

There was an awkward pause. “Well, I’m not trapped here any more,” said Howard. “But, see, I kinda came to a deal with Bucky. He gets lonely, you see, and he gets all grumpy and mopey about it, so we agreed I wouldn’t leave until someone else came along to take my place. And apparently that took twenty goddamn years.” He glared at Bucky, who shrugged unrepentantly.

“Wait, what?” said Clint. “You’re just going to steal my boat and leave me here for however long?"

Howard shrugged. “Yeah, sorry kid, but I’ve done my time. I’m sure someone will come along to take your place sooner or later.”

Clint stared at him, then turned to glare at Bucky. “No offence, dude, but if you try and keep me captive here, I am going to stab you. I’ve got shit to get back to.”

“You can try stabbing me,” said Bucky, and gave a sexily evil smirk that would normally make Clint’s knees go weak but he was a bit distracted by the idea of being held captive indefinitely. “I’m not really vulnerable to that kinda thing."

Clint scowled at him. “Yeah? Are you vulnerable to being annoyed to death? Cuz, I’m telling you, I can make your life a living hell. I once sang _The Song With No End_ for six hours straight, and I bet I can beat that record.” He reached out and poked Bucky, right in the chest where he got to feel the firm planes of his muscles, then jabbed at him again. “I bet I can keep poking you till you regret all your life choices as well,” he said. Bucky tried to catch his finger and Clint just shifted his aim to the guy’s toned stomach, his thick bicep, the curve of his shoulder, the top of his hip where his diaphanous sea-green pants hung low.

“Stop that,” growled Bucky, and finally managed to capture Clint’s hand. Clint immediately switched to poking with his other hand.

“Nope,” he said. “Gonna just keep annoying you until you let me go. I’ve got a dog back home, I can’t be spending twenty years out here being your entertainment, or whatever.”

Bucky let out a sigh and dropped his hands, then looked at Howard. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

“It’s gonna have to work,” said Howard. “I’m not staying.”

Bucky’s shoulders slumped and he looked back at Clint, who did his best to keep glaring in the face of Bucky’s kicked puppy expression.

“Maybe you should try making friends the regular way,” he suggested. “Hang out with them for a bit, see if you get on, maybe have a coffee. Don’t just kidnap whoever swings by and demand they keep you company.”

“The regular way for a siren to deal with humans is to kill them,” said Bucky in a low, dangerous growl, then he turned around and stalked off and, wow, those pants were kinda see-through. Clint tipped his head to watch as he walked away.

“Don’t mind him,” said Howard, who had opened up the engine hatch again and gone back to poking around. “He’s kind of a grumpy gus. Hey, you got any tools?”

Clint sighed. “In that locker,” he said, waving vaguely, and then wandered over to collapse into one of the chairs from Howard’s boat, which had been pulled out of the wreckage and put where there was a view out of the mouth of the cave. 

He stared gloomily at the waves and thought about how Lucky would be expecting him back. If Clint walked through the door right now, Lucky would bounce around over-excitedly, cover him in slobber and fur, and generally make Clint feel like the most important person in the world.

God, he better get to go home to him.

About twenty minutes passed before Bucky came back from wherever he’d gone to sulk. He sat down on the other chair and held a mug out to Clint without a word.

Clint took it, and gave the contents a dubious look. It was watery and vaguely green. “What’s this?”

“Seaweed tea,” said Bucky. “No coffee, sorry.”

Clint couldn’t keep in a distressed noise. “Come on, man, this is hardly the same,” he said. “I mean, you know what you were singing before, right? I fucking love coffee, and you tease me like that and then give me seaweed tea?” He took a sniff, and couldn’t hold in his disgust. “Seriously, you drink this?”

Bucky shrugged. “Not a lot of choice.”

Clint sighed, and gave it a try. It tasted like salty slime. “Gross,” he said, and tried to hand it back to Bucky, but he clearly had no interest in taking it.

Instead, he was staring at where Howard was still tinkering with Clint’s boat, whistling to himself with satisfaction. “You can go back with him,” he said. “Once the wind changes.”

“Seriously?” said Clint, perking up. “That was easy. I guess you really didn’t like getting poked.”

Bucky snorted. “Not with your finger, anyway,” he said in an undertone that Clint almost missed, then added, “You were right, I can’t go kidnapping people just to solve my problems.”

“You really can’t,” agreed Clint, still trying to work out if Bucky had meant that innuendo like it had sounded.

“I’ll go back to the other sirens,” said Bucky.

Clint frowned at him. “The ones that cast you out and took your arm?”

Bucky shrugged and held up his metal one, flexing the metal plates. “Howard built me a new one, and I don’t think they’ll try that one again.”

Clint shook his head. “Seems like you’d be better off on your own than with them.”

Bucky shook his head. “No. No, I don’t do well on my own.” He hesitated, then added, “Before Howard, I was killing people. A lot of people. Sirens are pod creatures, we go kinda feral when we’re alone. I thought that kidnapping someone every few years to stop that was better, but that’s not- I can’t pretend it’s okay. I need to let you both go and find another way.”

“Shit,” said Clint. He thought for a moment. “Have you tried a dog? Or, like the sea version of a dog? A seal?”

Bucky just shook his head, staring broodily out of the cave. “The others will take me back,” he said, and he sounded utterly miserable about it.

Clint took a deep breath, glancing around the miserable cave, and told himself he wasn’t going to do it.

_Why do you always end up taking in strays?_ he could hear Natasha asking, which was kinda rich given that she’d been one of those strays once.

“You could come back with me,” said Clint, giving in. “I’ve got a spare room.”

Bucky turned to stare at him. “You’d let me live with you?”

“Sure,” said Clint, because in for a penny, in for a pound. “I’ll be a lot less annoying there than I would be here, I promise.”

“I need to stay near the sea,” said Bucky, glancing back at the waves.

“I’m right on the seafront,” said Clint. “Garden goes down to a jetty.”

Bucky started to smile, and it was beautiful.

“And if you keep walking around shirtless I won’t even charge you rent,” added Clint, because he never knew when to just shut up.

Bucky glanced down at his chest, then back at Clint. “That could be arranged,” he said and winked, his smile spreading out into a wide, happy grin.

“No singing in the shower, though,” added Clint.

****

Bucky settled in to Clint’s home, and life, a lot more easily than Clint would have expected. He took over Clint’s spare room, piling shells and pebbles on the windowsill and filling an old aquarium with sea water and a handful of seaweed. He spent hours every day down on the jetty, lounging out in the sun or kicking his feet in the water as he read a book. He came along to the grocery store and poked at most of the stuff on sale with confusion, before filling Clint’s trolley up with fish fillets.

And he did it all shirtless, even after he’d discovered sweatpants and discarded his flimsy pants for them.

The first time there was a storm, Bucky stood on the jetty with his arms spread wide while the wind whipped his hair back and the waves seemed to compete on soaking him as much as possible. Clint stood in his living room, as close to the window as he could get without pressing his nose to it, and watched the wet gleam of his skin and the powerful shift of his muscles.

Fuck, he still couldn’t tell if inviting Bucky to move in had been a good idea or a bad one, but he knew he wasn’t going to be asking him to move out any time soon.

Plus Lucky loved him, which didn’t do much for Clint’s sanity. Coming home to find the sexy, shirtless guy he was crushing on snuggling with his dog just made him want to sink down next to them and join in.

The worst thing, though, was that although Bucky didn’t sing in the shower, he did sometimes hum when he was distracted and contented. Every single time, it drew Clint right to his side, where he’d hover awkwardly, trying not to think about all the images the absent-minded tune was putting in his head. Visions of Bucky naked and spread out in his bed; or of Clint joining him on the jetty, covering Bucky’s body with his own and kissing him until they were both breathless; or of stretching out on the sofa with his head in Bucky’s lap, where Bucky could gently stroke over Clint’s hair while he read like he did with Lucky’s fur.

It was a lot easier to fight the humming than it had been the singing though, so mostly Clint just ended up sitting in the nearest seat he could and pretending to play with his phone to hide his longing stares, until Bucky realised what he was doing and stopped.

“Sorry,” he’d say awkwardly, and then get up to make coffee, either as an apology or because he still thought that was the deep desire that his songs woke up in Clint.

And, sure, Clint loved coffee and was always going to welcome a cup of it, but his feelings for Bucky had outstripped that weeks ago.

Howard came by a few times to see Bucky, but he was pretty busy with all the drama surrounding his sudden reappearance and he didn't seem like the kind of guy who was good at maintaining relationships anyway, so the visits trailed off until it was pretty much just Clint and Bucky in a weirdly domestic bubble. 

One evening, Clint was battling the FBI on _Bass Fisherman Xtreme_ while Bucky was curled up reading _Moby Dick_. Clint had never read it, and never intended to, but he was pretty sure no one else had ever sniggered so much over it.

“You, ah, doing okay?” he asked, as the game paused for a cutscene to load.

“This guy had no idea what whales are really like,” said Bucky. “I kinda wish I was still speaking to my pod, because they would find this hilarious.”

“No, I meant, we’ve been pretty quiet here, just you and me,” said Clint. “You’re not feeling feral at all? No sudden urge to pull in the neighbours with a song and then chuck them off the jetty?”

Bucky looked up from the book and, shit, familiarity hadn’t really made Clint any less dazed by how pretty his eyes were. “I’m fine,” he said. “I promise, if I thought I were a danger, I’d leave.”

“No need to leave,” said Clint, possibly too quickly, “but I could introduce you to some other people. I probably should anyway, I reckon you and Natasha would get on like a house on fire.”

Bucky shrugged with disinterest. “If you want,” he said, turning back to his book. “I’m okay like this, though. You’re enough for me.”

That sent a wave of warmth all the way up through Clint’s body that completely distracted him from the cutscene finally starting.

He played another couple of levels, surviving a helicopter chase and managing to catch enough spotted bass to keep the mob off his back then, reluctantly, said the other thing he probably should make clear to Bucky.

“You know the shirtless thing was just a joke, right? You can wear whatever you want.”

“I know,” said Bucky, turning a page without looking up. “I’m okay like this.”

Clint couldn’t hold in a smile at that, because he really did like getting to see Bucky’s beautiful torso every day.

“And I like the way you look at me,” added Bucky, just as casually, and Clint felt himself go red.

“Uh, what?” he asked. “I don’t-”

Bucky looked up and raised an unimpressed eyebrow, then pointedly hummed a couple of bars that filled Clint with heat, and made him long to just crawl over to Bucky and lick over the lines of his abs. He clenched the game controller in his hands and made himself stay still.

“Uh, okay,” he said instead. “Good. I guess.”

Bucky sent him a smirk, then went back to his book.

Clint played the next level in such a daze that he tried to sell smallmouth bass instead of largemouth bass to the emperor of Japan, and caused an international incident that ended his game. He tossed down the control and slumped back against the sofa, then turned to look at Bucky, because that was pretty much always where his eyes were drawn these days.

Bucky continued quietly reading for a couple of minutes, then said, very quietly, “I was close to feral fairly often when it was just me and Howard. Typically, when a siren is this content with just one other in their pod, it’s because they’re mated.”

Clint’s eyes went wide, and his throat went dry. “Uh, you mean-”

Bucky put a bookmark in _Moby Dick_ and set it to one side, giving Clint a long, serious look. “I mean I am content to be your friend, but I would like to be more. If there are feelings behind your desires, if it's more than just attraction-”

“Yes,” said Clint quickly, words tripping over themselves, “yes, there are, feelings I mean, also desires, and, seriously, you want me?”

Bucky’s smile spread across his face, and Clint couldn’t look away. “Of course I do,” he said. “I’ve been humming, haven’t I?”

Clint couldn’t keep his distance any longer. He got up and headed across the room, dropping to his knees in front of Bucky and setting his hands on his thighs, feeling the powerful muscles under the sweatpants. “If that’s some kind of siren flirting, you should know that it doesn’t translate very well.”

Bucky set his hand on Clint’s head and gently stroked back to cup the back of his neck. Clint felt himself shiver under the sensation. “I made you coffee as well,” he pointed out, and yeah, okay, maybe Clint should have picked up on that one. “May I kiss you?”

“Please,” said Clint, breathlessly and Bucky leaned forward to kiss him, as relentless and powerful as the surge of the tide. 

Clint moaned, deep in his chest, and leaned in closer, finally reaching to get his hands on Bucky’s skin, stroking over his back and down to his waist, feeling those powerful muscles that had held the full weight of his boat against the strength of the sea. He wondered if he should mention that Bucky hadn’t had to do any singing at all, once Clint had seen that, but decided to save his breath and just keep kissing him instead.


End file.
